Tim Donnelly is a Republican gubernatorial candidate, but the Tea Party darling acknowledges he's better known for founding an anti-immigration activist group and for being the legislator who tried to board a plane with a loaded gun.

Those headline-makers, Donnelly says, may help boost his profile heading into the June primary - if voters are looking for a libertarian to shake things up.

"People like a rebel," the assemblyman from Twin Peaks (San Bernardino County) said in an interview this week in the midst of a campaign swing that took him to donor-rich Silicon Valley. "It's California. It's who we are."

Donnelly campaigned Monday in San Francisco as part of a bus tour that is taking him around the state. While in the Bay Area, he says, he picked up checks from Silicon Valley tech executives - he declined to name names - whom Donnelly is counting on fueling an independent-attractive campaign to make California "the sexiest place to do business."

It's early yet - most voters are barely aware of who's lining up against Gov. Jerry Brown - but Donnelly says he sees encouraging signs.

Surprising poll

Among the most surprising was a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last week that showed Donnelly - founder of an anti-illegal immigration activist group called the Minutemen - with a stronger showing among Latinos than former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, the son of Mexican immigrants.

Donnelly has made few overt appeals to Latinos - besides forming a group that wanted to fence off the Mexican border, he opposes the Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship for young people brought without documentation to the United States as children. Donnelly says it would be a "powerful incentive" for immigrants to break the law.

He maintains his candidacy holds appeal for Latinos because he pounds away at concerns about the economy, jobs and fairness for immigrants who have entered the country legally.

The Public Policy Institute poll also showed Donnelly with twice as much support as Maldonado among all likely voters. Although Brown was well out in front of the field, with 46 percent to Donnelly's 16 percent, the assemblyman noted that a separate Los Angeles Times survey recently showed just one-third of respondents were inclined to re-elect the governor.

Donnelly insists that issues such as high-speed rail and Brown's signing of a bill giving transgender students the right to use the facilities of their choice in public schools - "the single stupidest overreach of government I've ever seen" - are driving support from voters who never would have considered backing a Tea Party candidate in the past.

Aside from his Minutemen involvement, Donnelly's most prominent public moment came last year when he tried to board an airplane in Ontario (San Bernardino County) with a loaded handgun in his luggage. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor gun charges and was sentenced to probation.

The incident may not have damaged him among Republicans, a largely pro-gun audience that so far has few strong alternatives in the gubernatorial race. Maldonado has had trouble raising money, and Neel Kashkari, who helped run the federal bailout of troubled businesses after the 2008 crash, is largely unknown.

Patrick Dorinson, a conservative radio talk show host, said Donnelly's campaign may gain traction against his more mainstream GOP rivals because "whatever you may think of Donnelly, you know where he stands."

And he may be best positioned to push a "conserva-tarian" message, Dorinson said, which means "emphasizing limited government, free markets and individual liberty" while staying away from divisive cultural issues like abortion or same-sex marriage.

Hot-button issues

Asked where he stands on same sex-marriage, Donnelly didn't directly answer, saying only, "I don't think the government should be involved - period - in marriage at all. ... I believe marriage belongs in the church."

On abortions, Donnelly said he would "love to see every woman" who seeks to terminate a pregnancy be shown an ultrasound of her fetus first. But he added, "I don't believe it's appropriate use of power to force my beliefs on others."

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